Pro-tech/anti-commie vid from the 1939 World's Fair
Master archivist Rick Prelinger sez,
Link (Thanks, Rick!)
The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair is a 55-min. featurette that I consider the quintessential US industrial film. It ties together all the recurring themes of corporate speech: blind faith in technology, optimism about the future, suspicion about art and culture and (of course) anti-Communism. Westinghouse Electric sponsored it in 1939, and it features their wisecracking robot Electro, the newfangled medium of television, and their 5,000-year time capsule.Visiting from Indiana, the all-American Middletons find their daughter Babs seduced by her Russian-looking anti-capitalist art-teacher boyfriend Nick. At the World's Fair they marvel at the technology exhibits and see the "Battle of the Century," where Mrs. Modern and Mrs. Drudge pit sweaty sink labor against modern automatic dishwashing. Boy-next-door-from-home Jim Treadway vows to win Babs back from her cynical leftie teacher, and the intrigue is on.
There are cheap VHS dupes of this movie circulating, but it's never been available in its full Technicolor glory. This file was digitized from a 35mm nitrate print.
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Excellent find! So many layers of socio-political history. Even as far back as this 1950s era film you can see the beginnings of conservatism's association of any social non-conformance (Nick) with 'danger'- I guess many would say negative association has been around for a lot longer. But this film is an excellent illustration of how communism was used against our society and non-conformists in particular, during the red-scare era.
That's a really interesting piece of American history. I'm not a native American but this video provides a nice insight into times when communism was used as a weapon of manipulating the society. Glad you dug it up somewhere!
Who is that directed against WWEBOING? I don't think anyone is saying that just because communism was used against Americans that communism wasn't a bane on humanity. George F. Kennan was right about communism and the domino theory for sure, but the fear was definitely manipulated by our government. If you're using gulags to illustrate the evils of communism then you need to go back and re-read some Chinese history. Communists killed so many people in that country that many western historians are simply too stunned to quote the numbers (50 million). Many have observed recently - some referencing Orwell's 1984 - that manipulated fear used to justify spying on a society creates intense pressure to conform. Political leaders have motive to generate boogeymen, scientists I'm not so sure. If you think that just because liberals are more concerned about the environment and global warming that global warming isn't true then you're part of a radical fringe, and probably unable to divorce factual observation from your opinion/agenda.
I definitely think the find is praiseworthy and an interesting socio-political artifact both of pre-WWII technological idealism especially with the running anti-Communism plot line.
I would have to argue a little (as is the nature of the Internets) with Wassabicracka - I don't see the representation as much as reflecting a politically/socially conservative attitude per se, but the pre-"Red Scare" propagandistic subtext is an interesting element. From the general attitudes, conversation (particularly the father and the grandmother) the overall optimism for jobs, social and economic progress, and the future (as well as the grandmother's pragmatic assessment of women being attracted to like-minded men, in terms of politics and values, without passing explicit judgment) would most likely orient this "Joe Everyman"-style family as more in line with New Deal-style Democrats - social issues as jobs, progress, and standard of living for all being constant themes. That being said, New Deal politics, although progressive and "liberal" for the time, still sought not to interfere with social norms as such, hence what we may see as an old-order social conservatism.
At the same time, the token Communist, Nick, seems remarkably and caricature-ish in his naive proclamations of technology and mechanization as being against proletariat ideals - Marx and Engels specifically were assessing innovations such as automated textile mills, etc. in their plan for a new world order and saw this fluidity of work (e.g. non-skilled "guild"-style economics) allowed an era where work is abstract and the worker as worker could return to power (since the factory worker was distinct from the factory owner/landed bourgeois). Marxism (although arguably not Stalin-era Russian communism) was culturally bounded in conception and embracing of technology and industrialization, since this abstraction of work would allow the artist, the writer, and the humanist to thrive without pressing all others into forced factory labor. In a sense, Marx/Engels-style communism made references to industrialization as a means of lightening the load of labor and allowing all to reap direct benefits of goods and apparent "wealth" (as opposed the virtual surfdom of factory workers in 19th century Germany). Nick's comments were made as a reductio ad absurdum construct, alienated in practical terms from philosophical Marxism (to play as an antithesis to the progressive, capitalist modernism that ran full stream in the movie).
So in the end, the "Red threat" was blatantly overdone (albeit amusing in the pre-war context, where Communism wasn't as clearly politicized in the U.S. as a decade or two later), but was rather shown as a plot device to endorse a pro-tech/pro-capitalism message (to reinforce a pro-workforce building political message). The politics of this movie (within the context of the late 30's) nods toward contemporary (for the late 30's) progressive American ideals, although in today's parlance would seem more conservative than moderate or liberal.
But I blather...
What leapt out at me was the sheer romance of the thing. I grew up near Huntington, Indiana, and I wish the people there were half as sophisticated as that film lets on. I'm afraid that poor dorky leftist wouldn't have lived past nightfall in real life.
CelSe7en nicely presented, I'm persuaded.
In his book "Better Living: Advertising, Media, and the New Vocabulary of Business Leadership, 1933–1955," William L. Bird discusses this film and others, placing them in the context of industry's New Deal-era attempt to capture the hearts and minds of Americans back from government. The Great Depression was widely seen as a case of "industry caused it, government fixed it," and industry, especially the National Association of Manufacturers, wanted to regain the high ground.
Bird's book is an interesting read for those wanting to follow up on CelSe7en's remarks and review past culture wars and ideological conflicts.
Have any of you read Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt? Lewis basically spends 300 pages (hilariously, exhaustingly) detailing the life of Babbitt, a middle-class family man living in a prosperous midwest town.
I'm always reminded of it when I see movies like this.
@tsol
We are not discussing the merits of communism. We're discussing use of fear to vilify certain lifestyles.
Seriously, have you read Babbitt?
This is somewhat serendipitous. Just a couple of days ago I was linked to a 4-part BBC documentary fom 2002 called "The Century of the Self" that detailed how Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays used Freud's techniques of psychoanalysis on crowds, creating the whole idea of public relations.
In part 2, we see how it was Bernays who decided that the theme of the 1939 World's Fair should be focused on corporations in order to link consumption with people's unconscious desires, to help create a materialist, consuming culture - dumb and happy. Of course, it was all done in the interest of controlling the public's dangerous inner drives (because they couldn't possibly be trusted to make rational, intelligent decisions regarding politics). For their own good, of course...
He also played a part in helping the CIA overthrow the government of Guatemala (in support of the American company United Fruit Growers) when the newly-elected president wanted to take back land that UFG owned. Bernays helped spin the perception of the president as a communist sympathizer, and Guatemala as a menace only a few hundred miles away.
It's fascinating, and definitely worth your time. Background info on the series from the BBC website here, and the link to the first part on Google video here.
I think the scheming intellectual 'furriner', Makarov, is being used to appeal to middle-class American values and attack any suspicion of mechanization (perhaps an attitude of the labour movement).
A real communist in 1939 would have been bragging about the massive industrialization of the USSR in the last decade—without mentioning the deaths of a few million Soviet enemies of progress.
("Russian-looking?")
I thought it ironic that, in the opening scene, the father scolds the son about not being interested in "opportunities for young people". In a few years, that kid would be going to fight in the war!